


Bergentrückung

by AndyAO3



Series: somewhere (there's a place for us) [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dad!Gabe and His Cowboy Son Share a Moment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, That One Where Ana's Presumed Dead, The McReyes is Entirely Platonic and Familial, past reaper76
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: The last thing Gabriel expected was for him and Jesse to both reach their upper limit of how much bullshit they could take at the same time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There's some McReyes thing going on, I think? And while it's not my ship, I figured I could at least work in some interaction between them. Some very angsty interaction.
> 
> This is pretty much RIGHT before the fall of Overwatch. Gabe is best dad.

Ask when he thought it all went wrong, and Gabriel Reyes would say that it had been a little off from the start. That everything had been rigged, that he'd known it all along. Ask why he kept going, and usually he'd have an answer. But it was hard to find that answer with the past few days playing on a sped-up loop in his head, the volume turned up on everything that had gone wrong until it was deafening even in the moments of silence.

The report came through before Jack did. Now it sat on Gabe's desk, three dreaded letters next to the photo of one of his oldest and closest friends: MIA. When he'd first gotten it, he'd snapped a tablet he'd been holding in two as he read the thing. More damning than the KIA reports that came through from the same op, because of the factor of the unknown-- of abandonment.

He remembered cornering Jack in the hall mere minutes after he'd gotten off the transport, uncaring of who saw. Getting up in his face, snarling. Not giving a flying fuck how haggard and tired he looked, just-- angry. _What the fuck, Morrison?_

And Jack just, staring Gabriel down. Grim as he braced himself. He'd had to make a call, he'd said. That was all he got to say before Gabriel got him by the collar and slammed him into a wall. Passers-by flinched, shied away, gasped.

Gabriel spat out the numbers. The injured, the dead. All confirmed one way or another. Only one unconfirmed. They'd beaten worse odds to save each other before on slimmer hopes than that, all three of them had. They'd dragged each other and the people closest to them back from death's door so many fucking times back in the day, going against orders and even their own better judgment to do so. They'd had each others' backs, always. Hell, Gabriel had half a mind to charge in there on his own and drag her ass out himself. She would have done the same for either of them, and she wasn't even a super-soldier.

Yet Jack hadn't even fucking tried.

Gabriel's knuckles were bruised, black and blue and sore as he tapped his fingers on his desk to the rhythm of the music that ran through his head in a quiet counterpoint to the memories screaming through his head. He'd laid into Morrison after that, kept on fighting until the other soldier fought back. A real knock-down drag-out, right there in the hall. Ana would've disapproved, but Ana wasn't there.

A knock at his door got him to look up, snapping him briefly out of his own thoughts. "It's unlocked," he rasped.

The door opened, and there was McCree. Head hung low, shoulders slumped, hat clutched in his hands. "H-hey boss." He looked like he hadn't slept.

Gabriel softened almost immediately at the sight. "Hey, ingrate." An old insult, worn down until the sharpness of it turned to something more fond. "What's up?"

"I..." McCree wasn't making eye contact. He was chewing his lip instead, gripping his hat tight. He took a moment to close the door behind himself before continuing, stalling for time. "I dunno if--ah, I just, m'not sure what the procedure is when it comes t' someone in my position wantin' to, uh..." He swallowed thickly. "Leave."

Gabriel sat up a little straighter in his chair, schooling his expression to nothing more than a frown. Clearing his throat, "I wouldn't force you to stay, if that's what you mean."

"Oh." McCree nodded to himself. "I, alright. I just--" his voice cracked slightly and he paused to collect himself, "is Captain Amari really--?"

"MIA," Gabriel answered automatically. "Presumed dead. No one's holding out a lot of hope at this point."

"Jesus..." For a moment it looked like McCree was about to cry. "A-an' what about Fareeha? Is she okay?"

"It's Morrison's job to tell her what happened, not mine." Honestly, Gabriel wasn't sure he could handle making that particular call just yet. "How're you holding up?"

McCree laughed, faintly hysterical. "Hell, boss. My best friend's already fucked off to God-knows-where, Angie's lookin' at gettin' the hell outta dodge too just so she ain't gotta see things get no worse, an' now this? How in the nine levels'a hell am I suppose'ta feel? Everyone's just--" he gestured vaguely with his hat in hand, "-- _leavin'_ , y'know? An' I ain't never felt like this place was much more'n a nicely polished shitshow but damn if it ain't losin' its shine right about now."

"You want out," Gabriel said. No judgment, no anything. Just a flat statement.

"Ain't like nobody else can leave me behind if I beat 'em to the punch, boss." McCree fidgeted with the frayed brim of his well-loved hat. "I wanna stop feelin' like my work's just piss in the wind, y'know? No offense."

Gabriel sighed as he leaned back in his chair. No offense taken; he felt the same way. "I know, kid. If you wanna go, then go."

A few seconds of gawking told him that McCree hadn't been expecting that answer. The gunslinger stared, and frowned, and then his features knit together with concern as something seemed to occur to him. "So you ain't mad or nothin'?"

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't," Gabriel told him, "but if you'd rather not be here, I won't keep you. No prison sentence, no trying to get you to stay in through blackmail or extortion."

McCree took some time to chew on that before responding. "Do you, uh," he started to say, pausing to gnaw on his lip, "i-is everythin', I mean. A-are, are you okay, boss?"

Gabriel laughed. Even to his own ears, it sounded defeated and broken. First Ana, now McCree. And hell, Shimada too, because while he'd been expecting the kid's resignation for a long damn time, he could tell that McCree hadn't internalized it until the cyborg was out the door. "I don't see how that's something you'd need to worry about if you're leaving," he said.

The gunslinger fidgeted. "It's just, if I'm needed here, like, if you asked me--"

"I'll be fine, Jesse." Firm, hopefully reassuring, inviting no argument. Gabriel didn't want to hear it. If it was bad enough for McCree to want to leave, then he should be allowed to.

McCree shut up abruptly, ducking his head and nodding. "Right. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about." Resigned, Gabriel stood up and walked to his paltry office window, so much less fancy than Jack's. He'd picked it on purpose, because it overlooked the HQ's front gates. "I'll handle the paperwork, don't worry." It'd give him something to do that wasn't thinking, and take the burden off of McCree, who had trouble concentrating on things like paperwork when he was upset. Resignation papers didn't need margin doodles of dragons in cowboy hats or omnics with way too many arms holding six guns at once.

He wasn't sure whether it was a credit to his mentorship or McCree's skills that he didn't hear the kid cross the room, that he didn't realize the younger man was behind him until McCree was in his personal space. He stiffened immediately as the wannabe cowboy's face fell against the back of his neck, cowboy hat knocked faintly askew by the motion.

Not for the first time that day, Gabriel wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.

"M'gonna miss the hell outta you, old man," McCree said shakily.

Gabriel's heart broke at the sound; again, not for the first time that day. Turning around slowly, he brought his arms up to wrap them around McCree's shoulders and pull the kid close. McCree practically fell into the embrace, trembling and clinging to his hoodie.

Poor kid.

"Stay safe out there, ingrate," he murmured. "That's an order."

McCree sniffled and nodded. "Yessir."

 


End file.
